Lord Hollick, the Labour peer and millionaire businessman, has offered to pay the BBC the £5,000 needed to secure a repeat broadcast of Dennis Potter's drama The Singing Detective to mark its 25th anniversary.

However, BBC rules on using donations to pay for programmes may prevent Hollick's offer being accepted.

Hollick made a personal approach to the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, at Oxford charity art auction last week and told him that he would be happy to make up the £5,000 gap between what the BBC is prepared to pay and what the Potter estate wants for the rights to repeat it.

Hollick told the Guardian: "I did speak to Mark Thompson at this event and he looked quizzically at me and suggested that £5,000 may cause more problems than it solves.

"But I still think it's a small sum to secure a fabulous piece of work which should be back on the BBC and I will keep pressing them on this."

The BBC had planned to repeat the series from last Sunday, 13 November, but negotiations broke down over the repeat fees. It is understood that the BBC was prepared to pay £15,000 in repeat fees but the Potter estate wanted £20,000.

The BBC is understood to be considering ways that could make it possible for Hollick to make the unprecedented offer, although it is unclear whether it can directly take Hollick's money, as it is "unable to accept donations in exchange for programmes", according to one corporation insider.

One other solution that may be considered is for Hollick to donate the money to the Potter estate to make up the £5,000 shortfall in what is it asking for the repeat fee.

A BBC spokeswoman said: "It would be inappropriate to pay above the odds for any programme, particularly during a time of budget cuts."

The Singing Detective, a six-part drama that starred Michael Gambon as a hospitalised writer, won acclaim when it was first shown in 1986, but also criticism for what were relatively graphic sex scenes for a BBC1 peak-time drama.

The series, which had noirish elements as well as Potter's trademark use of surreal musical numbers in the middle of the drama, explored often dark aspects of the writer's own childhood in the Forest of Dean.

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